


dirty, secret keeping liars and the idiots who love them (the secrets and sex workers remix)

by Tonks22



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Bucky is an idiot, Fluff and Humor, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Oblivious Steve Rogers, Obvious Bucky Barnes, Stripper!Steve, and they were ROOMMATES, but so is Steve, it's a little crack-y
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-21
Updated: 2020-07-21
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:00:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25428808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tonks22/pseuds/Tonks22
Summary: Bucky and Steve have lived together for a long time. They have gone through many ups and downs. They share everything...Well...Almost everything. Steve has been keeping a secret from Bucky and Bucky has been pining for Steve. Pining loudly. Sadly for them, they are both idiots.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 4
Kudos: 54





	dirty, secret keeping liars and the idiots who love them (the secrets and sex workers remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [StuckySituation](https://archiveofourown.org/users/StuckySituation/gifts).
  * Inspired by [secrets and sex workers](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18086750) by [StuckySituation](https://archiveofourown.org/users/StuckySituation/pseuds/StuckySituation). 



> I am coming in three months late with Starbucks but I have a good excuse! I was sick, but I am not anymore. 
> 
> When I read the original work, there was the one line that stuck with me and this fic was born out of it. Well, the idea of it was born from it and then Peach enabled my need to write it. 
> 
> "We’ve survived through the hell of one bathroom and two diarrheas more than once.”

**Bucky wants a romantic dinner with Steve.  
  
** “Can’t you give me _one_ more minute?” Steve asked Bucky, or begged, really. It wasn’t like he hadn’t waited his turn earlier when Bucky was on the toilet. It had been a near thing, but he was able to hold things in until Bucky had finished  _ his  _ business. The least he could do now was not bang on the door like a woodpecker on drugs.   
  
“I can’t Stevie,” Bucky said. He sounded on the verge of tears and if he was feeling anything like Steve was feeling, then he probably  _ was  _ about to cry. “Unless you want a big brown stain on the hallway carpet, you need to finish what you are doing now and please for all that is holy. Let. Me. In!” 

Steve should make Bucky wait. It was his fault they found themselves in this predicament anyway. Who bought sushi at a gas station, walked 20 minutes to get home (in the summer no less), re-refrigerated said sushi and then served it for dinner? Without telling their roommate and best friend that it was GAS STATION SUSHI. 

Steve reminded Bucky it was his fault.

“I paid good money for it, I wasn’t going to waste it,” Bucky said. “Sixteen dollars may be just chump change to you, Mr Up-And-Coming-Artist, but to me, it means almost two hours of work.” 

And while it was true that Steve was now making a LOT more money than before, it wasn’t exactly because of his art… well, it could be seen as art. Dancing was a type of art, wasn’t it? Yes, it was half-naked dancing, but it was just dancing. Not that Bucky needed to know that. As a matter of fact, it’d probably be for the best if Bucky never ever knew how Steve got his part of the rent paid. 

“Do us both a favor,” Steve told Bucky when he opened the door to the bathroom and almost got run over by Bucky on his way in. “Tell me next time and I’ll give you the sixteen back. And for the love of god, close the damn bathroom door. I don’t want you stinking up the whole apartment.”

“Not like it smelled like roses in here, punk. I swear, this is the last time I try to set up a romantic evening for us.”

“It’s no wonder you are single if this is how you try to charm the fellas,” Steve said while walking around the hallway with a lit incense stick.

Steve and Bucky had been friends since the afternoon when Bucky had attempted to show off his muscles to Steve after he scared off some kids trying to steal Steve's backpack. Sarah Rogers found them icing a pair of black eyes and Bucky trying to show Steve how to sew his backpack back together. They became inseparable after that.

Since then, they had ups and downs like any other pair of friends who practically lived out of each other's pockets. They never wavered in their friendship, no matter what. 

The last 24 hours, however, had been the toughest of their whole lives. They both questioned whether they would be able to stand living together after this. It didn’t matter where they went in their small two-bedroom apartment, they couldn’t put enough distance between them. 

Steve blamed Bucky (see aforementioned sushi debacle), and Bucky blamed Steve. “You didn’t want to rent the apartment with TWO bathrooms, Stevie. We wouldn’t be suffering like this if you hadn’t been looking for the ‘perfect lighting’ in a living room.” 

Steve could almost hear the quotation marks around ‘perfect lighting’ and that just wasn’t fair. Bucky had said that living this close to his job was worth the lack of a second bathroom since he could just walk to and from work and save money on gas. 

It wasn’t the first time they had suffered through the “One Bathroom Two Diarrheas” hell but it  _ was  _ the first time they had truly resented living in such a small place. 

If their friendship survived this, they could survive anything. 

**Bucky gets a night job to pay for some expensive paints**

Bucky was a dumbass.

No one knew why or how he got the playboy reputation (it may have started as a joke), but anyone that knew Bucky Barnes knew he had no game. Except for Steve Rogers who thought the sun shone out of Bucky’s ass, but there were many things Steve was not aware of because he was as much of a dumbass as Bucky.

Like not realizing how friends didn’t normally tell friends about the wet dreams featuring them. In detail. 

Yes, Bucky did that. 

Again and again. 

And Steve? Well, he just listened attentively because he’d want Bucky to listen to him if he needed to talk about one of  _ his _ dreams. That was the only reason, nothing more, nothing less. And if his body… reacted… to the dreams, well, he always did have a very vivid imagination. It was normal, right?

But that wasn't the point. The point was: Bucky was a dumbass. 

He wanted to start saving money to be able to buy the fancy set of paints Steve had been eyeing for Christmas. But in order to do so, he needed to make more money and a second job seemed like a great idea. 

With all the commissions Steve had been taking lately a nice set of paints for his personal works would be appreciated. Bucky knew that. Poor Stevie would probably try to save his current paints for paying jobs so having another set for himself  ~~might get Bucky into his pants~~ would be nice. 

Bucky just needed to find something easy to do, preferably at nighttime, and in short shifts. He was disappointed that Build-A-Bear didn’t have the Teddy Bear Repair Technician position open again. He enjoyed that job and he was good at it. 

Eventually, Sam was the one who gave Bucky the idea for his latest gig, and Steve wanted to kick Sam’s ass for it. Who tells their friend about a phone sex operator wanted ad they saw on Craigslist? More specifically, what kind of person would tell BUCKY about it. Bucky, the king of odd jobs (he had been a bed warmer, a ‘professional mourner,’ and an odour judge for a deodorant startup). 

And Bucky being Bucky always shared his experiences with his best friend. There were  _ no _ secrets between them after all. 

Bucky’s life as a phone sex operator was no exception. Which was how Friday night found Bucky draped over Steve’s bed, headset on, telling someone on the line that he was wearing nothing but a red thong. 

The liar. 

He was wearing Steve’s sweater and a pair of Sam’s sweatpants, and honestly? He could probably do with a shower. 

It was a torturous three evenings, suffering through descriptions of things Bucky was most definitely not doing. It was three evenings during which Steve tried hard (ha! Hard) not to imagine the things Bucky was describing. 

Not that Bucky was good at his job, he tended to break down into giggles randomly. 

“Yeah, sugar, just like that. Let me ride you like a bronco, please, I’m begging you, ooh aah, yes, yes.” 

Steve was not a judgy person, but whoever this customer was must have been desperate to get off to actually be turned on by the sounds Bucky was making. 

Steve had accidentally heard Bucky while on dates with miss rosy palms, and he knew for a fact Bucky did not sound like that when he was about to come. It was more of a raspy moan, his breath hitching, and a - nope, he was not thinking about that when Bucky’s head was so close to his lap. 

Bucky sat up suddenly and didn’t even try to hide his laughter. “Who even does that, dude? I ain’t flexible enough to put my toes in my mouth. What's next? Want me to put them in my ear? Hello? Dude? Hello? I think he hung up on me, Stevie.” 

“You are so fired,” Steve said without looking up from his sketchbook. “And thank god for that, you kink shaming asshole.” 

“Now I’m gonna have to find a different job,” Bucky said, wiggling his toes and wondering if he should have just gone along with the customer’s request. 

**Bucky stares and is not ashamed of it**

“Are you planning on blinking any time soon, Buck?” Steve asked. 

“I’m maintaining eye contact, it’s what you do to show someone you’re interested, and  _ damn _ Stevie, I’m interested.” 

Steve was wearing Bucky’s red Henley and… It. Looked. Good. It was a little small, but a good kind of small. The kind that made the shirt stretch when Steve moved. Sometimes Bucky wondered if Steve did that on purpose. He had to know there was no way Bucky would get over him if he kept looking like that. 

“You’re being weird again,” Sam said. “Nat, tell Bucky to stop being weird.”

“Stop freaking Sam out and just ogle Steve when we are not around,” Nat said on her way back from the kitchen with a new beer. “Steve, tell us when you’re going to let us see the commissions you’ve been painting. They have to be good or you would still be buying Keystone six-packs instead of whatever it is that we are currently drinking.”

“He won’t tell you or show you nothin’,” Bucky said. He was still looking at the seams on Steve’s shirt. He had a bet going with himself that he could make Steve stretch enough to rip them. He just needed to figure out how. “He signed some DNA or something.”

“It’s NDA, stupid,” Sam said throwing his pillow at Bucky, who didn’t even flinch when it hit him on the head. “It’s like we’re not even here,” he added to Natasha. 

“I, um… I may be able to when the whole collection is done. But I don’t know when that will be,” Steve said, face a little redder than normal. 

Steve hadn’t thought that they might actually want to see the paintings. He would have to figure out what to do in case they pressed the issue. He’d think about that later. He needed to leave in five minutes if he was to make it on time to his appointment. 

“Can I borrow your MetroCard Buck?” Steve asked and grabbed Bucky’s wallet without waiting for an answer. 

“Where are you going so late anyway Stevie?”

“It’s 8pm,” Steve said, ignoring the actual question. There wasn’t much else he could say. Friday and Saturday nights were the usual nights when his services were requested. He’d gone to a party on a Sunday afternoon once and that had felt dirty. All that natural light and being able to really see the faces of those women while he gyrated to  _ Pour Some Sugar On Me _ … he’d rather not do that again thank you very much. 

But no matter the time of day for his gigs, they tended to pay very well, and that was before the tips. He just hoped there weren't any handsy aunts this time. 

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were going on a date looking like that,” Bucky told him and was hit again with another pillow. He just raised his hand and flipped Sam off. 

“Ha, yeah… no… just work. A commission,” Steve said lamely before walking out the door. 

**And this is how Bucky finds out how Steve pays for _his_ half of the rent **

It was not usual for Steve's clients to provide transportation but this particular gig was an hour away on the metro, and the maid of honor had almost begged him to take it. She offered a ride to and from the location and she wouldn’t even take it off his fee. 

Steve could have said no, but this had been a word of mouth recommendation and you couldn’t buy that kind of advertising. It was how he got most of his gigs anyway. Someone saw him at one party and told a friend about it who then told another friend. 

He had just texted the maid of honor his address and was about to get in the shower when she called him to let him know that his ride was having car issues. 

Steve hated the thought of missing out on this job and he was pretty sure Bucky wouldn’t mind giving him a ride. He texted Jenny back to her know he’d be there as soon as he could. 

Steve finished packing his performance outfit and went to search for Bucky, who was actually standing just outside his bedroom door. 

“Hey Buck, can you give me a ride? I got, uh, a new portrait commission. She was supposed to send someone to pick me up to our meeting, but uh, apparently his car broke down or something.”

Bucky just stared at him in that way that made the hairs on the back of Steve’s neck stand up (and other parts of his body too, but he couldn’t focus on that at the moment). Bucky stared and stared and stared. 

“Buck?”

“Sorry. The gig is canceled.”

“I think I would be the one to know that, not you,” Steve said raising one perfectly judgmental eyebrow.

Bucky took a deep breath and with one question, he made Steve question every decision he ever made. “Did you know that it was going to be Becca’s bachelorette party?”

Months of being careful, months of  _ lying  _ to his best friend, months of agonizing over this secret, and Bucky just called him out on it. Months of making sure no one he knew would be at the parties. Months. Just to book a job for Bucky’s sister. 

_ Well, shit.  _

There was a fight, Steve was pretty sure of that. But everything was a blur. Bucky hiding in his room, yelling at Steve, the hurt look in his eyes. 

When asked later, Steve wouldn’t remember exactly how the conversation went.

But he remembered the feel of Bucky’s arms around him. He remembered finally (FINALLY!) getting to kiss the spot where Bucky’s shoulder met his neck. He remembered thinking that he could spend the rest of his life holding Bucky close. 

Bucky mostly remembered the three earth-shattering orgasms. And he made sure to tell Sam about it, in detail, the next time he saw him. 


End file.
